I remember when The Battle of Britain came out, as a young adolescent. I went to see it at least twice, maybe three times. I had the hots for Susannah York. I also had written a term paper about it.
7 thoughts on “Getting History Right”
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“Aces High” by Iron Maiden is the most historically accurate heavy metal song about the Battle of Britain.
https://g.co/kgs/kp6d2es
Might be nice if I could make out the words.
I recently toured the 11 Group control bunker that has been set up as if it is 15 Sept., 1940. What struck me is that the so-called Dowding-Park system was beautifully conceived as a non-digital computer system, with data channels, error correction, and one of the best designed user interfaces that I’ve ever seen. Dowding and Park were absolutely brilliant and it’s a shame that Mallory stabbed them in the back during the war. At least now, their reputations have largely been restored.
The aerial footage in the movie is spectacular, even with the Merlin engines in the Bf-190s and He-111s.
War movies in particular helped stimulate my interest in the history of technology when I was a tyke. I loved the books of Archie Whitehouse too.
One thing that always amused me about the movie (indirectly) is that about the time it was being made some local reporter wandered the streets of London stopping folks at random and asking for the thoughts on the Battle of Britain. He stopped one young lady (then) and asked her. For a few seconds she stared like a deer caught in the headlights and then finally said “I work for the Foreign Ministry and don’t think I should make any comment”.
I asked a faculty colleague, wasn’t from London, maybe from Yorkshire, what he thought of Dowding getting fire, demoted, reassigned, whatever for preventing said colleague from speaking with a German accent.
I get criticized from all quarters that I “go off on tangents”, but every thing I say has some purpose or meaning, and here it was people in the Department and at the U not being appreciated for what they contribute, but a Battle of Britain analogy was lost on him.
“Oh, I guess they tried to teach us about that in school.”
You know, when this movie first came out, I wanted to go see it. I wasn’t driving (legally, I grew up in a farming town) yet, so I must have been unable to convince the folks to take me and missed its short theater run.
Thanks for the reminder Rand. Some 56 years later I should try to stream this movie. I do remember the line from that movie about Germans marching up Whitehall…